Anti-Lung Cancer Targets of Radix Paeoniae Rubra and Biological Molecular Mechanism: Network Pharmacological Analyses and Experimental Validation

Abstract

Objective: To systematically explore the pharmacological mechanism of Radix Paeoniae Rubra (RPR) against lung cancer (LC). Methods: A network pharmacology approach, which involves active ingredients and target forecast, network construction, gene ontology and pathway enrichment, was employed in this research. In addition, the effect of Baicalein (BAI) in RPR on A549 cells was researched in vitro and in vivo. Results: A total of 159 targets of the 29 active components in RPR were procured by pharmacokinetic parameters. The network analysis showed that β-sitosterol, baicalein, (+)-catechin, ellagic acid, stigmasterol, (2R, 3R)-4-methoxyl-distylin were the main ingredients and JUN, VEGFA, BCL2 were the hub targets of RPR in the treatment of LC. The functional enrichment analysis showed that RPR likely was useful to LC by regulating numerous pathways including Pathways in cancer, MAPK signaling pathway and so on. MTT results showed that 100μM, 200μM, 400μM of BAI had a time and dose-dependent inhibitory effect on A549 cells proliferation; Wound healing and transwell assays showed that 100μM, 200μM, 400μM of BAI could significantly restrain the migration and invasion of A549 cells; Flow cytometry assay results showed that 100μM, 200μM, 400μM of BAI could induce apoptosis of A549 cells. In vivo, BAI (50, 100 mg/ kg) significantly inhibited tumor growth and promoted apoptosis of tumor cells compared with the control group. Conclusion: BAI in RPR may exert anti-tumor effects by inhibiting the proliferation, migration and invasion of LC cells, and inducing the apoptosis of LC cells.

Analysis of the drug-target-disease network of trichosanthes-angelica sinensis-frankincense-myrrh in the treatment of breast cancer

“…As an effective apoptosis promoter, high β-sitosterol concentrations significantly inhibit the proliferation of human breast cancer T47D and MDA-MB-231 cells [26][27][28][29]. Stigmasterol and β-sitosterol are similar to cholesterol in structure and are classified as phytosterols [30]. Stigmasterol promotes cancer apoptosis by inducing reactive oxygen species production and calcium overload and activating the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-mitochondrial axis to induce cell death [30,31].…”

“…Stigmasterol and β-sitosterol are similar to cholesterol in structure and are classified as phytosterols [30]. Stigmasterol promotes cancer apoptosis by inducing reactive oxygen species production and calcium overload and activating the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-mitochondrial axis to induce cell death [30,31]. Ellagic acid not only inhibits the proliferation of MCF-7 human breast cancer cells by regulating the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β)/Smad3 signalling pathway and reducing Rb protein phosphorylation [32] but also inhibits the growth of MDA-MB-231 cells by regulating p-VEGFR2 (vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2) expression by activating the VEGFR-2 signalling pathway [33].…”

East Asian Herbal Medicine to Reduce Primary Pain and Adverse Events in Cancer Patients : A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis With Association Rule Mining to Identify Core Herb Combination

“…In the case of Paeonia lactiflora Pallas, it is already known that it has potential effectiveness in various types of cancer, such as bladder tumor and lung cancer, based on several mechanistic studies (Lin MY. et al, 2016;Ma et al, 2021). At the same time, the combination of Paeonia lactiflora Pall.…”